10/1/2008

It’s traditional, before a debate, to lower expectations for your side, and raise expectations for the other side. That way, if both candidates do OK, the winner is your guy (or gal), because he (or she) was expected to do badly. That’s why, as commenter Aplomb notes:

Right now the Dems are pushing how masterful Palin has been in her Alaska Gov. debates and reminding all how Joe sometimes puts his foot in his mouth. The GOP is pushing the opposite line, how Biden has had decades of experience doing debates while this is her first one on the national stage.

Indeed.

Offered without further comment: a story in this morning’s L.A. Times titled Underestimate Palin at your own risk, former rivals say. “With Thursday’s vice presidential debate approaching, ex-aides and opponents of the Alaska governor recall her skill at jabbing with a smile, even if she wasn’t always focused on learning the issues.”

OK, just one comment: Obama’s aides themselves couldn’t have written a better headline.

13 Responses to “L.A. Times Heightens Expectations for The Opposing Side The Republicans”

Karl, of course most on the right realize that Biden is a gaffe machine and that Palin is not as stupid as the press pretends she is.

This post was about the ridiculous bias in the media. Not lowering expectations for Palin. Still, we win when it comes to beating expectations: By now, you have made up your mind, and so have I. But those who haven’t have only had enough exposure to Palin, via John Stewart or SNL or that magazine at the dentist’s, to know that she’s the underdog.

For the vast, vast majority of undecideds, it doesn’t matter what the newsheads say: Palin is expected to look very stupid, and Biden is expected to look very smart. I personally will be extremely disapointed if Palin does not blow Biden out of the water, and to me, a mere tie is a huge victory for Obama. But for the undecideds, a tie is indeed a huge victory for the attractive woman who is supposedly in over her head.

Barring a clear knock-out event,you as an independent observer will probably never know,objectively,the true outcome of the debate,considering many factors undoubtedy being in play: prejudice, the media’s spinning and the biased pollsters.
Biased debate watchers always claim victory for their favoured candidate even by a less-than-tie judgement.

Why shouldn’t the LA Times do that – especially when they have so many useful idiots on the right that are just waiting to tear Palin down for any mistake she might make while glossing over the inevitable foot-mouth gaffes that Biden will make?

The MSM doesn’t really need to go after Palin anymore – there are plenty of conservatives doing their work for them on that account.

I promised some thoughts on what to do about the news media’s outright campaigning for Obama. (And that’s what it is. Media bias used to mean that they would slow-walk stories that reflected badly on their candidate; now they just flat out ignore them, or even try to shoot them down. They’re not just in the tank, they’re functioning as arms of the campaign, and Obama’s strategy shows that he knows that and is relying on it.)

I wonder if the right-wing blogosphere could unite in a campaign to boycott the media arm of Obama’s campaign? Bloggers who elected to participate could stop linking to MSM fronts for Obama like the NYT and LAT, and encourage their readers to cancel subscriptions en masse. Maybe we could make a statement, or at least draw some attention to the issue.

Dmac – I have always thought that when someone injects race into an issue where it is not relevant, like Ifill did, it is the clearest indicator that they have no tenable position to defend themselves from.

JD – no doubt that’s true, but there will always be legions of folks like Peter/Phil/anonymous Troll who will conveniently ignore that victimology from hacks like Ifill and instead point to their purity of heart, integrity beyond reproach, ad nauseum. The reality is that these people could never say these things to you in person, lest their facial muscles contort themselves into outright sneers or smirks.

Trying to raise expectations for Palin now is like shouting for your buddy in the plane you just jumped out of to toss you down a parachute–it’s a tad late to try to undo a month’s work of work that you’ve been busily engaged in.

Dmac – I have always thought that when someone injects race into an issue where it is not relevant, like Ifill did, it is the clearest indicator that they have no tenable position to defend themselves from.

This is true.

One Usenet I have had exchanges with a fellow calling himself “Eli Grubman”, who claims that he is better than me because he is white.